Tournaments

Monday, May 20, 2013

YA Crush Tournament Nominations Begin TODAY!!!!

It's that time again!!!! For those of you unfamiliar with the Crush Tourney, it's a time for us to come together and talk about our favorite YA book boyfriends. Then in a March Madness style Tournament, the crushes will square off until only one remains. This year, we're doing things a bit differently though, including breaking up the nominations into categories so that we get a more diverse range of books. And Nominations are now officially open, but before you high-tail it over to the 4 amazing blogs helping us out, be sure to look over the rules and category definitions!!! Not paying attention to the rules COULD get your nominations deleted.

Rules for the YA Sisterhood Crush Tourney
2013

***PLEASE PAY SPECIAL ATTENTION TO THE
CATEGORY DEFINITIONS.THEY WILL HELP YOU
TO KNOW WHO IS ELIGIBLE FOR EACH CATEGORY.THIS WILL SAVE TIME AND A LOT OF FRUSTRATIONFOR THOSE COUNTING THE VOTES***

**YA
only (No NA, No Middle Grade, No Adult, NO EXCEPTIONS) What is considered YA? YA books focus on teen characters. Middle Grade and New Adult books are intended for younger and older than teenagers. These characters are not eligible for the tournament. We realize there is some gray areas on where to draw the lines between these. Therefore, our deciding factor will be where it is shelved in a bookstore. In the case of books not available in bookstores, the final ruling will depend on whether or not that character falls into the high school age range. For those of you who are bummed that no NA crushes are allowed, we have some stupendous news for you!!! There will be a NA CRUSH TOURNEY hosted by NA Alley coming soon!!!! We are not sure of the exact times, but will let you know as soon as possible. Here is their banner. Feel free to grab it, post it and start spreading the news!

**Previous winners
of the tournament are ineligible to participate.

**You can nominate 6 crushes from each category on the specified
blogs.We will take the top 6 from each
category.If a crush makes it into the
top 6 of more than 1 category, he will be placed in the category in which he
received the most votes.

**After the nominations are complete, we will have a wild card vote.The 7th-9th places in each category will be
taken, and we will have a vote off on YA Sisterhood to determine
the final 4 spots in the tournament.This will leave us with a 28 seed tournament with the 1st crush in each
category getting a bye in the first round.

**This year we’re
limiting it to 1 character per author in the tournament.You can still nominate more than 1 character
from an author.However, once nominations
are finalized, if more than 1 character is nominated from an author, we will
only take the character with the highest votes.We realize that this might upset some of you because you love many
characters, some of which are written by the same author. But the goal of this
tournament has always been to introduce new books and new characters to
readers, so we want to share the love. So you’ll have to decide which team
you’re on, and make your votes count.

**This year, advocate sign-ups will be after nominations, May 28th - June
1st. (more on advocates will come later)

**Keep it clean.
Keep it respectful. We have no problem banning you from the tourney. We’ve had
MAJOR drama issues in the past, and even though we swore we weren’t going to do
another tourney, we’re back because we love books and we love authors and we
love you. But PLEASE… this time… let’s leave the hate and drama at the
door.

DISCLAIMER:
We reserve the right to add or adjust any rules as needed during the tournament.

CATEGORY DEFINITIONS:

Debut: The debut category will include any author whose very first novel came out in either 2012 or 2013. Please double check your nominations as any vote for a crush that isn't a debut will be thrown out. Again, this is the author's first novel, not just their first YA novel.

Realistic Fiction: The category is for crushes from books that are contemporary, historical, thriller, etc. that could truly happen in our world. So if a book has any hint of the paranormal, sci-fi, or the other-wordly--it does not fit in this category. Again, please double check your nominations so that you don't waste a vote!

Speculative Fiction--This is by far our biggest category, as it includes anything that is not considered realistic fiction. That means dystopian, paranormal, government super spies, sci-fi, futuristic, etc.--all these fit into the speculative fiction category.

Indie: The indie category includes any crush in a self-published novel or any crush from a small publisher like Entangled, Spencer Hill, Inkspell, etc. If the book is published by traditional New York Publisher, then it does not fit in this category. Furthermore, if a book started out as a self-pubbed book, but then got picked up by a major publisher, it NO LONGER qualifies for this category. Here is the definition from the Independent Book Publishing Professionals Group: "The term 'indie' traditionally refers to the independent art--music, film, literature or anything that fits under the broad banner of culture--created outside of the mainstream and without corporate financing. Although many independent book publishing companies are incorporated, they are independent of the major conglomerates that dominate the book publishing industry. Independent book publishers include small presses, mid-size independent publishers, university presses, e-book publishers, and self-published authors."

*******Many crushes will fit in multiple categories!!! You may vote for them in multiple categories if you would like, but keep in mind that we will only take the Top 6 in each category. Be strategic. If you have a crush that has a better chance of making it in one category than the other, then rally support for people to vote for that crush in a specific category. Use Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr--anything and everything to spread the word about your man! Keep in mind that Speculative Fiction is by far the largest category, so the most competition will be seen in that category!Okay! So now that you know the definitions and the rules, be sure to go nominate at each participating blog!!! Nominations are open from Now until May 25th at 12:01 AM.